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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
At its three-year mark, the Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical's (PEO C3T) Project Director, Communications Security (PD COMSEC) has become the Army's central hub for communications security standardization and funding efficiencies. "When we were chartered in 2010, our mission was a set of significant goals," said Stan Niemiec, the PD COMSEC. "Since that inception, and with a highly motivated team at every level of the Army and across a wide and engaged stakeholder community, we have turned those words into actions and continue to clean up decades of COMSEC on the battlefield and at Army installations worldwide. We are bringing reduced variants and quantities of much simplified modern equipment and acquisition discipline to the Army COMSEC arena." Multiple efforts to modernize equipment and upgrade hardware and software capabilities for stateside and deploying forces have already resulted in more than $169 million in cost avoidance and cost savings for the Army. Recently, PD COMSEC personnel analyzed fill device authorizations across the Army and determined the Army could reduce the amount of key loaders and still meet mission requirements. Fill devices, like the Simple Key Loader (SKL), load cryptographic keys into encryption machines. SKLs receive, store, manage and export electronic cryptographic keys. The keys are loaded into communications devices such as radios and satellite terminals to secure networks. This one simplification effort regarding how the Army authorizes SKL fill devices could result in a 43-percent reduction of fill devices needed across the Army. This is but one example of how the PD COMSEC team has sought to replace aging COMSEC hardware while meeting future COMSEC requirements. A case in point: an M1 Abrams tank receives a radio and several other communication systems. Because each communication system is managed by separate program management offices, the individual offices each assign an SKL to their system. The end result might be an M1 with four SKLs authorized to it -- three of which would likely be left unutilized. "If we move to an echelon-based issuance, an M1 tank platoon of four tanks would be authorized a total of four SKLs versus the current 16," said Eric Adair, product director for key management at PD COMSEC. "We would focus on one SKL per squad or one per platoon, and not have the issue of multiple SKLs on the same platform." PD COMSEC was also chartered to centrally manage programs of record for the
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